Did you know that May is Celiac Awareness Month?

Millions of people all over the world live with Celiac Disease, including 1 in 41 Americans – and many people who have not officially been diagnosed as Celiac are also considered gluten-intolerant. According to a recent study, one-third of Americans are working on cutting back on, or cutting out, gluten in their diets.

So what is gluten, anyway, and why is it so destructive?

Gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley, rye and some other grains. Not only does gluten occur in foods containing these products, but it is also used as a binding agent in other foods (like some brands of soy-based vegetarian products) and even in other products like medicines and cosmetics such as lip balms.

Celiac Disease occurs when the body has an autoimmune response to gluten, usually ingested in food. The body’s immune system attacks the villi, the small, hair-like structures in your small intestine that are responsible for taking nutrients from your food so your body can use them. The more gluten you eat if you have Celiac Disease, the more damage is done, until your body can’t absorb nutrients properly. Even some people who are not diagnosed Celiac can have gluten intolerance, which can cause symptoms like stomach upset, rashes, hives and general ill-feeling.

It’s incredibly important for those with Celiac Disease to eat a totally gluten-free diet. Luckily, in recent years, more and more gluten-free options have become available to those who are unable to tolerate gluten. Taste of Nature bars are one of them!

Taste of Nature organic snack bars* are gluten-free and appropriate for those living with Celiac Disease. We know that when you have Celiac, it’s much more difficult to find healthy, easy snack options. That’s one of the reasons why we’ve made our snack bars gluten-free as well as vegan, low-GI and non-GMO: because we believe that everyone should have the right to a delicious, healthy snack!

Find out more about Celiac Awareness Month here.

(*Although our  Niagara Apple Country bars are made with gluten-free oats, those with Celiac Disease should be aware that we cannot make a gluten-free claim for these due to regulations, so should eat these bars with caution.)

photo credit: Elias Gayles

But do you know how our delicious snack bars are made?

Tonight, you’ll have a chance to find out: Taste of Nature is featured on tonight’s episode of Food Factory on Food Network Canada!! Watch the show tonight at 9 PM EST to get an exclusive sneak peek at what goes into creating our Quèbec Cranberry Carnival snack bar, from the raw ingredients to the finished product.

Warning: this show may very well make you hungry. In that case, head over to Facebook for your chance to WIN one of 5 boxes of Quèbec Cranberry Carnival bars!

Good luck, and happy watching… and eating!

Photo credit: Ian Bothwell.

Attention all yogis! We have six pairs of tickets to give away to the Yoga Conference, March 21-24 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre! This is one of the biggest yoga events of the year in Canada, with thousands of yoga enthusiasts gathered to practice together.

And the best part is: you could win a pair of tickets!

To win, all you have to do is email us a photo of yourself doing your favourite yoga pose, tweet us a photo, or post a photo to our Facebook page. It can be indoors or outdoors – wherever your inner peace lies.

Get your friends involved, too: three of the ticket pairs will go to the contestants with the most Facebook likes and/or retweets of their photos!

And if you’re going to the show already, remember to come visit Taste of Nature in booth 209!

Taste of Nature is excited to announce our participation in Creative Sampling Solutions’ Hearth Month program this February!

You’ll be able to sample our delicious, organic and heart-healthy Taste of Nature at selected Metro grocery stores all over the Greater Toronto Area including Mississauge, Oakville, North York, Etobicoke, Burlington and Georgetown.

Heart Month is an initiative of the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death among adult Canadians. During Heart Month, we’re focusing on how to keep our hearts healthy, including a balanced diet rich in nutrients and plenty of cardiovascular exercise.

Taste of Nature is proud to be a heart-healthy treat. Our bars are low-GI, which means that they help keep your blood sugar steady; they are also organic free of preservatives and GMO ingredients, gluten-free, vegan, and a great source of the vitamins and minerals that keep your heart going.

Head to your local Metro during Heart Month and see how Taste of Nature bars can be a heart-healthy part of your diet!

(And the best thing about these events? You’ll get a coupon for $1 off your Taste of Nature purchase!)

Thursday and Friday demos will take place 2pm-6pm, and Saturday and Sunday demos will take place 11-3pm, unless otherwise indicated on the Creative Sampling Solutions Facebook page.

The syndrome, which affects one in every 24,000 children, occurs when an abnormality in the brain’s enzyme production means that it is unable to break down certain sugars, which build up and cause irreversible damage. Most children with Sanfilippo Syndrome do not survive to adulthood, and the disease is fatal 100% of the time.

Instead of succumbing to despair when Elisa was diagnosed with Sanfilippo Syndrome, her parents Randall and Elisabeth decided to put their love for their daughter and their passion for helping others into a foundation that would support funding for research on the disease: the Sanfilippo Children’s Research Foundation, at alifeforelisa.org.

Getting To The Top

Recently, there has been a major breakthrough in Sanfilippo Syndrome research: scientists have found some success in reversing the course of the disease in animal models. To move to clinical trials, though, there is a need for significant funding – and so in December, a group of 26 intrepid climbers, including Elisa’s parents, brother and sister, set off to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro to raise money to fund Sanfilippo Syndrome research. Each climber paid his or her travel expenses and committed to raising at least $4,000 for the Foundation.

Before they left, the Lintons reached out to Taste of Nature to see if we would send along some of our delicious snack bars to help the climbers keep their energy up for the trek. Of course we said yes – how could we possibly refuse to aid in such an amazing adventure for such an incredible cause?

Heartbreak and success

The climb was an enormous success, and the climbers returned to cheers and congratulations. But unfortunately, tragedy struck up high as well: the Irish mountaineer Ian McKeever, who was climbing with another charity group just behind the Lintons’, was struck and killed by a freak lightning strike. Even in the face of such an awful tragedy, though, we all knew that McKeever had been doing what he loved to the very end.

In the end, the Sanfilippo climbers raised over $104,000 for research into the disease – an amount that will go far towards ensuring a life for Elisa and for other children afflicted by the disease. Taste of Nature is proud to have had some small part in helping the climbers reach their goal, in more ways than one.

To contribute to the Sanfilippo Children’s Research Foundation or find out more about how you can help, visit the SCRF website.

Did you ever dream of being an astronaut and flying into space on an adventure? So did we… and now, our bars get to do it!

Taste of Nature bars have been specially selected by the Canadian Space Agency and Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield to go on a mission to the International Space Station in December 2012 on board the Soyuz spacecraft. We’ll be keeping the astronauts in organic, gluten-free, delicious snacks while they explore the mysteries of deep space.

Bon voyage!

For more information, check out the great article published today in the Toronto Star about our bars and their amazing journey! http://bitly.com/U16AWl

You can also find out more about the amazing Canadian Space Agency and their “Canadian Foods in Space” initiative here: http://bitly.com/U16Tkc

Janice:

When they first came to Canada in the 1840s, my family got rid of all the trees they could as quickly as they could.  Burning and chopping down trees sounds shocking to us now, but it was the early days of Canada and my land-hungry ancestors needed to get rid of the trees to create the farmland they needed to survive.

Over 120 years late,r my father decided to rectify the resulting treelessness.  In parts of the farm, the land was steep and unusable, and he decided to replant trees on the hillside. His decision was made easier as saplings were either free or pennies apiece, and he had free labour: my mom, my brother, my sister and me.

During many springs in the 1960s we planted thousands of trees over several days. At the time, when I was young, it seemed like back-breaking work – although I was only carrying buckets of trees to my family so they could plant without stopping.  The saplings seemed like nothing but tiny weeds, but they survived to grow into a huge forest.

Years later, when my children wanted to go to their auntie’s house via a forest trail, they were afraid of the trees and the quiet shadows inside.  I assured them that they were friendly giants, and so the forest was dubbed the ‘friendly forest’.  Today the forest belongs to someone else, but they love it as much as we did. In fact, it has been officially designated a ‘heritage forest’ to protect it.

We work so hard to create legacies for ourselves when really, it’s so simple a child could do it – and did. Plant a tree, and then another one, until a forest stands.

I am very proud to work for a company that recognizes the value of trees and is happy to provide support for reforestation. We talk endlessly these days about trees and their importance, so it’s easy to forget how simple it really is to plant a tree and watch a forest grow. But by creating these legacies we ensure that others can stop on a hot summer’s day in the cool stillness and meet the friendly giants.

Natalie:

Who doesn’t want to live on a tree lined street? Apparently I’m not alone in this desire so when a young tree got uprooted by storm winds we were determined to put it back in its rightful spot.

“Bon Temps”:

Here we are prepping the ground for a pear tree. I have a lot of fond memories of the fruit trees in my backyard growing up that I wanted to continue the tradition with my own family.

Sylvia:

A very good friend of mine lost her beloved Mom early this year and dug up her Mom’s favourite tree. It took her all day but she was determined. She brought it home to her place and planted it in her backyard where she could look at it every day and think of her Mom. I was so honoured that she shared this with me, I cried all afternoon.

“Jay Tee”:

Here is a pic of my girls planting their first tree. Well, I did assist them a little by digging the hole! It was part of a community green thumb effort. And now every time they pass the tree, they shout ‘Hello’ to it and comment about how it’s grown.

Soraya:

We had the smallest backyard…. Being tree lovers, we had to fill the space. We planted two hazelnut trees, one apple, one peach, one pear, and one cherry. Their yard must have been 20ftx 20ft. (That small!!). To ice the cake, [my parents] put in an all season pond. I grew up in that house and now I take my kids to visit and play in the yard… it’s even more fun when they get to pick organic fruits and nuts . I even have an avocado tree growing in my downtown condo!

Lilly:

Okay, so it’s hard to see but I am planting a tiny sapling. My school organized the planting and you had to sign up on your on time if you wanted to help out. No extra credit or anything. I am proud to say that there was a great turnout and now I am even more appreciative of all the trees around me.

Jenn:

These two trees when planted were saplings no bigger then a foot. 8 years later they are as tall as me. That does not say much unless you are a tree.

Jennifer :

Here is a picture of my favourite tree in our yard. My son loves to climb it and decorate it for every occasion.

Clare:

Our lovely Marley enjoying the outcome of our apple tree planting we’ve been doing for a few years since a hurricane ripped away our old ones. She enjoys being out in the sun with us and chewing on some of the apple. She never eats enough of it to reach the seeds, though, which is good since they aren’t good for consumption. When we first moved to Canada, there were hardly any trees in our area… now, there are more and more every year and many critters have made homes in our yard now that there are extra places to live and take shelter.

The story of this our pairing with this community program is inspiring: together, we have helped transform and improve the lives of women in Toronto. It started small, though, with a very modest idea.

Just over a year ago, Lisa Denhartog, a member of 416-supporter Soroptimist International of Toronto, wondered how to improve the nutritional services that 416 offered its women. Until that point, the organization was only able to offer breakfast and lunch, meaning that some women often went hungry for the entire rest of the day.

Denhartog consulted her friend, Alex Neira, who works for Shandiz Natural Foods, the parent company of our Taste of Nature bars. Knowing that Taste of Nature production runs created a large of amount of healthy and high-quality leftovers (dried fruits and nuts too small for the packaging), Neira proposed a mutually beneficial solution. 416 would take the cumbersome bags of leftovers once a month and distribute them to their many at-risk clients as a form of nutritional and compact food.

The idea was settled, and after sorting out the logistics of transporting the huge amounts of leftovers (carloads worth, in fact) and amassing a team of volunteers to repackage the snacks into sandwich bags, the project gained quick momentum.

Once distributed among 416’s clients, the feedback was quite positive. The women loved having a portable, healthy meal they could travel with and that required no refrigeration. As an unexpected benefit, many reported that they actually ate less junk food because they had our healthy alternative.

Along with offering the clients of 416 a nutritious option for food, the Taste of Nature leftovers have also given other at-risk Torontonians a sense of purpose and self-worth thanks to an idea by packing volunteer, Debi Gaudet. After assisting with several packing sessions, Gaudet, who is also a nurse at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, wondered if she could involve any of her patients, fellow nurses, or other volunteers in the process. It would be an enjoyable, constructive experience for the clients, she thought.

By July, the wheels were in motion and Taste of Nature had dropped off bags of nuts and fruit at CAMH. The results were nearly instant: a team of volunteers, including students, staff and clients, were ready to go.

“I was beside myself,” says Gaudet, “when I walked into the dining area of the unit to at least 24 people… working away at the weekly ‘give back group’, bagging up fruit and nut mix for the 416 Community Support for Women.” The project has solidified itself as a weekly activity at CAMH, where volunteers meet every Tuesday as the “Give Back Group.” It’s a meaningful task for many of the clients at CAMH, who themselves suffer from mental health and addiction issues (some have also relied on the services 416 provides for regular support). They feel it’s something to look forward to on a weekly basis. Equally important is that the initiative has become symbiotically beneficial: the clients of 416 are enjoying access to nutritional, organic food they might not otherwise have, while clients at CAMH are becoming empowered and involved in making a positive change.

Thanks to the continuous fundraising and community work of Soroptimist International along with Taste of Nature’s efforts, community outreach programs such as this one are there to help the people who need it the most. We’re proud to give back to our community in this way.

Helping Hands

http://mssociety.ca/mswalk/

Look for Taste of Nature samples at the following local events. And it is not too late to sign up and participate! Your participation will help fund innovative programs and services in your own community – and support groundbreaking research dedicated to finding a cure.
Ajax – Pickering MS Walk / Run
Barrie MS Run / Walk
Caledon MS Run / Walk
Bowmanville MS Run / Walk
Brampton MS Run / Walk
Brantford MS Run / Walk
Burlington MS Run / Walk
Cambridge MS Run / Walk
Chatham MS Run / Walk
Cobourg, Port Hope MS Run / Walk
Etobicoke MS Run / Walk
Guelph MS Run / Walk
Kawartha Lake MS Run / Walk
Kincardine MS Run / Walk
Kitchener Waterloo MS Run / Walk
Leamington MS Run / Walk
London MS Run / Walk
Markham MS Run / Walk
Midland MS Run / Walk
Milton, Halton Hills MS Run / Walk
Mississauga Lakeshore MS Run / Walk
Mississauga Streetsville MS Run / Walk
Musoka MS Run / Walk
New Tecumseth MS Run / Walk
Newmarket MS Run/ Walk
Niagara Falls MS Run / Walk
Oakville MS Run / Walk
Orangeville MS Run / Walk
Orillia MS Run / Walk
Oshawa MS Run / Walk
Owen Sound MS Run / Walk
Peterborough MS Run / Walk
Richmond Hill MS Run / Walk
Sarnia MS Run / Walk
Scarborought MS Run / Walk
Simcoe MS Run / Walk
St. Catharines Thorald MS Run / Walk
St. Thomas MS Run / Walk
Startford MS Run / Walk
Stathroy MS Run / Walk
Toronto MS Run / Walk
Uxbridge MS Run / Walk
Welland MS Run / Walk
Whitby MS Run / Walk
Windsor MS Run / Walk
Woodbridge Vaughan MS Run / Walk
Woodstock MS Run / Walk

One solution to this problem is to work towards making schools more accessible… and Taste of Nature is helping to make this happen, by building a school in Humera, Ethiopia.

Taste of Nature has become involved with sesame seed-farming communities in Humera, a town best known for producing a unique, sweet-tasting and highly popular variety of the seed. Sesame seed export is one of the most vital economic resources for Ethiopia, and the seeds are also a key source of income for rural families and farmers. Learning at school how to improve their agricultural practices is the key to a sustainable future for the next generation of Humera’s farmers.

“So many people in the region depend on harvesting,” says Salma Fotovat of Taste of Nature. “We knew that sesame seeds could lead directly to economic autonomy for communities there. The goal is both stability and sustainability, and Taste of Nature wanted to help them achieve that.”

Taste of Nature is helping rural families embrace sustainability through a long-term sesame-based social investment plan they’ve created in collaboration with Selet Hulling and the Shewit Cooperative, a network of farmers in the Humera region. By contributing a 5-cent premium on every pound of sesame seed produced in the region, Taste of Nature has been able to assist in funding the school’s construction and maintenance. Designed and founded in 2011 for teenage students who, due to geography, would not have access to regular classes, the school will do its part to improve the country’s low literacy rates, agricultural education, and village life in general.

“Getting students reading proficiently is key,” continues Fotovat. “Education is going to play such a vital role in improving the quality of life in the community. We hope that, through helping to finance the school, we can help these students build a sustainable future for themselves and their families.”By using these sesame seeds – small golden grains of hope – to help fund education in Humera, Taste of Nature is making that future look a little brighter.